Heretofore a limited number of apparatus have been devised to take large quantity of boards from a board road, that is boards having nails extending from one side thereof which nails must be bent, bending the nails and placing the boards in a stacked relationship for reuse. The closest art known to me is my own prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,651,554, granted March 28, 1972, wherein the boards are handled with their major axis parallel to the major axis of the machine or run longwise through a nail bending station.
Other patents found by me and considered prior to making this application are the A. Sommer U.S. Pat. No. 3,339,390; Newnes U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,959; the Schmitt U.S. Pat. No. 3,785,277; the Farrell et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,855,917; the Lunden U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,128; and the Hebert U.S. Pat. No. 3,651,554.